7 maidens

Recently I watched a tv program called "The Silk Roads - Wonders of Azerbaijan" by Bettany Hughes. In it she talked about this ancient petroglyph from Gobustan, which, if I remember correctly, she called "7 maidens"...

Unfortunately I can only find this copy of this program online in, I guess, Azerbaijani, so I can't confirm this myself. If anyone has access to the English version, I would really appreciate if you cold confirm this for me. Thanks. Or alternatively, I would rally appreciate if @bettanyhughes could confirm that this is indeed what she called the petroglyph in question. And if she could clarify if this was a nickname given to the petroglyph by the local archaeologists, or was it her own poetic invention 🙂

The reason why I ask is that on the highlighted image from the program, I could only see 6 figures, not 7. Is there a 7th figure that wasn't highlighted, or that is not visible from the angle from which the petroglyph was filmed?

Why I would like to determine if there are indeed "7 maidens" depicted on this petroglyph, is because in the program, Bettany proceeded to talk about how "the meaning of the petroglyph is unknown".

Now if there are indeed 7 female figures depicted on this petroglyph (I guess we think they are females because of the public triangles ???, but they could just be as easily men wearing some kind of weird loincloths), then maybe I could offer a possible explanation...

Is this a bovine, depicted behind the human figures? It certainly looks like one. If so, then the meaning of the "7 maidens" petroglyph could be the "7 sisters", the Pleiades, which rise with the sun in Apr/May...

Apr/May, when wild Eurasian cattle start to calve...

Which is why this time of the year is is still marked with a bovine, Taurus...

I talked about this animal calendar marker in many of my posts, for instance "Cow and calf ivory", "Foundation peg of the goddess Nanshe", "Elamite water bull", "Human bull hybrid", "White calf", "Calydonian boar"...

According to this paper, "Agricultural Practices at Mentesh Tepe (Kura Valley, Azerbaijan) during the Neolithic, Chalcolithic and Bronze Age: An Overview from Sickle Elements and Botanical Remains", the main Neolithic, Bronze Age crop grown in Azerbaijan was barley, which was sown in the Oct/Nov, and harvested in May/Jun...Using sickles with composite stone blades...

Basically small sharp stone flakes, inserted into crescent shaped wooden frame...Something like this.

These sickles evolved from wild ass, deer jaw bones. 

We know that some primitive jaw bone sickles actually had long handles.

The sickles then evolved into wild ass, deer jawbones with artificial flint teeth

Then into artificial wooden jawbones with artificial flint teeth

And finally into serrated (toothed) jawbone shaped piece of metal...

I talked about the evolution of sickles in my post "Sickle"...

So it is quite possible that the things held by the figures are long handle sickles...Or maybe what is depicted on this rock engraving from Azerbaijan is something like this: Cain (farmer) killing Abel (shepherd) with a "ass jawbone", [my comment: the earliest form of a sickle]. 

New York, Pierpont Morgan Library: Ms 43, Huntingfield Psalter, XII Century, fol. 8. Pic from "Cain's Jaw-Bone that Did the First Murder"

Taking all this into account, is this image a calendar marker for harvest your barley when wild cattle starts to calve and Pleiades rise with the sun? I talked about Pleiades, barley harvest and animal calendar markers in my post "Pleiades". In it, explained why, according to the Greek mythology, the Pleiades, the seven daughters of Atlas, were transformed by Zeus first into doves, and only then into stars...

It's all to do with the link between doves and grain harvest (goddess)...Like Demeter, who was depicted on this terracotta statuette enthroned with a turtle-dove on her lap. The cult image of the harvest goddess was likely venerated in a sanctuary. From Sicily, 5th century BC. Milan Archaeological Museum. Pic by Gareth Harney

I explained this link in my posts "Demeter and dove" and "Cup of Nestor"...

This link between grain goddess and doves also existed in Mesopotamia, where Inanna was also linked with doves. 1800-1600 BC pottery cup, Syria. The rounded body tapering to a flat base, with 26 bird heads. Similar objects were interpreted as votive objects dedicated to Ishtar/Inanna. 

I talked about this in my post "Inanna and dove"... 

The reason why doves are linked with grain goddesses and with pleiades is because doves, both European and Asian, nest during the grain harvest which starts in Apr/May, when pleiades rise with the sun, in Taurus...

But maybe there are no 7 but indeed only 6 figures depicted on this petroglyph, and they are not female but male figures with (admittedly weird) loin cloths, and these are not sickles they are holding but battle axes...

In which case this is just a depiction of a bovine hunt 🙂

To read more about ancient animal and plant calendar markers, start here…Then check my twitter threads I still didn't convert to blog post...I am way way behind...

The oldest Demeter depiction

So...How old is the oldest depiction of Demeter, Greek Mother of Grain? How about 4500-4200 years old? Do you want to see it? Here she is in all her glory...

Mother (vulva) surrounded with grain...This symbol is hidden in plain sight on this strange object. This is one of many mysterious Early Cycladic "Frying Pans" found on Cycladic islands in Greece and dated to the second half of the 3rd mill BC

I talk about this particular frying pan, in my post "Tuna boats" about Bronze Age Cycladic tuna fishermen, in which I was discussing the ancient fishing/sailing calendar for the Cyclades. A lot of these "Frying Pans" depict boats, tuna fish and swirling waves...

And of course I completely missed the most important bit: vulva surrounded with grain, symbolic depiction of the Mother of Grain...

We know that this has been a grain symbol in Eastern Mediterranean, Mesopotamia, Central Asia, Iran, since at least Sumerian times...

I talk about this symbol being used in combination with vulva to depict the mother of grain in many of my posts. Like this post, "Arjoune Venus", about the 6th mill BC Halaf culture figurines from Syria. This one has vulva on front and ears of grain on the back...

We even have this symbol described in "The Courtship of Inanna and Dumuzi" where Inanna, Sumerian Mother of Grain, says:

Before my lord, Dumuzi...

I poured out grain before my womb...

I talked about this in many of my posts...

BTW, we find the same symbolism (grain before womb) described in the Greek legends about Baubo and Demeter...I talked about this in this recent post "Baubo", in which I explain why she is one of the most misunderstood figures from Ancient Greek mythology. 

This is one of many "Baubo" figurines which were found in the Sanctuary of Demeter and Kore at Priene and dated to the 2nd c. BC. 

The fact that we find the earliest use of this symbolism in the Fertile Crescent is important. You'll see why soon.

Anyway, I suddenly remembered the vulva with grain "detail" from our Cycladic "Frying Pan" while I was writing my post "Poseidon pursuing demeter", in which I gave symbolic analysis of this Tetradrachm minted in Byzantium, Thrace, ca 240–220 BC, which depicts veiled head of Demeter, wreathed with corn and Poseidon seated right on rock, holding aphlaston in extended right hand and trident over shoulder. 

In it, I tried to answer the question: why were Demeter, Goddess of grain harvest (season) and Poseidon, God of sailing (season) paired together? As horses?

Basically, horse mating season, Apr/May-Sep/Oct overlaps with both grain harvest and sailing season in Ancient Greece...

Hence the link between Demeter (Mother of grain), Persephone (Grain) and horses. Here is Demeter in her horse-drawn chariot with her daughter Persephone, driving between two prancing stallions. 🙂 Selinunte, Sicily 6th c. BC

And the link between Poseidon and horses. I talked about this link in my posts "Trojan horse", "Three sacrifices", "Tetradrachm from Byblos", "Seahorse ring"...

Anyway, I expanded on it in my post "To sail - To harvest", about the heliacal rising of Pleiades being a calendar marker for the start of both harvest and sailing season in Ancient Greece...Greek name "Πλειαδες" comes from πλεω, which means "to sail"...

I think we find proof for this link between the goddess of grain (harvest) and god of the sea (sailing) in Minoan Crete in the 2nd mill BC.

Actually goddesses of grain, Persephone (grain seed) and Demeter (grain harvest)...

Here they are, in a horse drawn chariot, depicted on a late Minoan limestone sarcophagus, dated to around 1400 BC, excavated from a chamber tomb at Hagia Triada, Crete, Greece...

I just remembered I wrote a whole post, "Agia Triada Sarcophagus", about this a while back where I actually talk about this link between Poseidon, Demeter, Persephone and horses in detail. I am getting old and forgetful...

This link between grain harvest season (Demeter) and sailing season (Poseidon) is I think what is depicted on our Cycladic "Frying Pan":

Tuna fishing boat (Poseidon)

Vulva surrounded with grain (Demeter)

What do you think?

But 🙂 there is something that makes me wonder...

This stele, most likely from the ancient city of Mari in Syria, depicts the Mother of Grain in exactly the same symbolic way...And dates from...🥁🥁🥁...the beginning of the third mill BC...Pretty much the same time as our Cycladic "Frying Pan"...

I talk about this amazing object in my post "Mother of grain from Mari"...

So what I am wondering is, does the vulva surrounded with grain depicted on our Cycladic "Frying Pan" depict Demeter...Or maybe her Levantine double, Inanna/Ishtar/Asherah/Astarte...

I already talked about the possibility that the 2nd mill BC Mycenaean Greeks worshipped Asherah who eventually turned into Demeter in my post "Cup of Nestor"...

Cup from Mycenae with doves. 

And the lions flanking a pole depicted above the main gate of the Mycenae fortress.

Interestingly, Asherah, who was symbolically depicted as an Asherah Pole, was associated with both lions and doves...And so were Inanna and Demeter...

Asherah the goddess represented as a wooden pole erected on "high places". We have no idea what this means, but I have a hunch that the "high places" were threshing floors and that Asherah poles were central poles of the threshing floors...

I talked about this in my post "Sacred marriage on the threshing floor"...

And this is what Homer says about Demeter and threshing floors:

"And even as the wind carries chaff about the sacred threshing-floors / of men that are winnowing, when fair-haired Demeter / amid the driving blasts of wind separates the grain from the chaff"...

Which is why Eugene Vanderpool in "ΕΠΙ ΠΡΟϒΧΟΝΤΙ ΚΟΛΩΝΩΙ: The Sacred Threshing Floor at Eleusis" proposes that threshing floors were sacred to Demeter and were in fact her temples...I talked about this in my post "Demeter riding panther"...

But as we can see from the our "Frying Pan", I think that this "Mother of Grain" from the Fertile Crescent came to Greece much earlier...In the 3rd mill BC. Via Greek Islands...Already linked with the god of the sea...

Look at this:

Asherah's son is Yam, god of the sea, or more precisely Yam, deified sea itself. And because of all this, Asherah's title "Rabat Athirat Yam", found in the Baal Cycle, can be translated as "Lady Aṯhirat (Asherah) of the Sea"...

The same sea god Yam, who in Phoenician and Canaanite mythology, was associated with horses?🙂

Phoenician ships often adorned with horse heads as tributes to Yam, who was believed to be appeased with such offerings to prevent destructive storms.

Reproduction of a Phoenician ship from the Archaic era, called a hippoi by the Greeks (due to the horse head at the bow), carved in bone, c. 11th-9th centuries BC, Ifergan Collection, Malaga, Spain (2019)

I talked about this in my post "Trojan horse", in which I asked a question: was Trojan horse "hypos" - a wooden horse left as tribute, or  "hypos" - a wooden boat with a horse head used for transporting tributes...

And in this article I also pointed at this "coincidence":

In the Phoenician religion, there was a tripartite division of power between Baal (Storm god), Mot (God of death) and Yamm (Sea god)...

This "seems to have" (first understatement of a millennium) influenced the Greek division between Zeus (Storm god), Hades (God of death) and Poseidon (Sea god)...

Are you kidding me? How many other tripartite divisions of power like this do we have?

It "is possible" (second understatement of a millennium) that Poseidon/Neptune was directly inspired by a Phoenician counterpart Yam...

Is Asherah/Astarte then "inspiration" for Demeter? I just realised I wrote another post, "Goddess on a horse", about this 13th c. BC levantine gold plaque, depicting a lady on a horse, probably Astarte or Anat (according to Israel Museum), who was linked to grain and sailing...

Sooooo...What do you think of all this? 

The oldest symbolic depiction of Demeter and Poseidon? 

Or 

The oldest depiction of Asherah and Yam?

Or both?

I hope you had fun reading this thread. I definitely had a lot of fun researching it, thinking about it and writing it...

That's it. To read more about ancient animal and plant calendar markers, start here…Then check my twitter threads I still didn't convert to blog post...I am way way behind...

To sail - To harvest

In Ancient Greece, the heliacal rising and setting of Pleiades, whose ancient Greek name "Πλειαδες" comes from πλεω, which means “to sail”), was used as a calendar marker for the beginning and the end of the sailing season...

Heliacal rising and setting of Pleiades marks (roughly) the beginning and the end of the "good sailing winds" season. Winds caused by the sun, heating up the Eastern Mediterranean, and creating an updrift, which sucks the cooler air from Europe to start streaming southward...

I talked about this first in my article "Trojan horse", in which I asked a question: was Trojan horse "hypos" - a wooden horse left as tribute, or  "hypos" - a wooden boat with a horse head used for transporting tributes...

In this article I also explained the link between Eastern Mediterranean Sea gods and horses: The start of the horse mating season marks the start of the sailing season in the Eastern Mediterranean...

For those interested, I also talked about the Etesian winds in my article "Three sacrifices" about human sacrifices made "for good winds" at the beginning and the end of the Trojan war. And about animal and plant calendar markers from the description of these sacrifices, that can help us determine when the Trojan war started and ended...

And I also talked about the Etesian winds, in my article "Anat" about this Semitic "warrior" goddess worshipped by the Canaanites & Egyptians during the Bronze and Iron Ages...

Anyway, after a while I wrote this article, "Demeter with dove", in which I explained why Dove was sacred to Demeter. The reason for that is that nesting season of doves overlaps with the grain harvest season...

After that I wrote this article, "Pleiades", in which I explained this strange Greek legend about the origin of the Pleiades constellation.

According to the Greek mythology, the Pleiades are the seven daughters of Atlas

whom Zeus transformed first into doves

and then into stars...

Why first into doves and then into stars? Animal calendar markers of course...

And in it I also wrote that the Heliacal "Rising" and "Falling" of pleiades divided Greek year into two halves: grain growing agriculture season (Oct/Nov-Apr/May) and sailing season (Apr/May-Oct/Nov)...Kind of important...

Oct/Nov being the time when grain sowing season started and Apr/May being the time when grain harvest season started.

And Apr/May being the time when sailing season started and Oct/Nov being the time when the sailing season ended.

And then last week I wrote this article, "Poseidon pursuing Demeter",  in which I explained the meaning of the strange legend about Poseidon as a stallion eloping with Demeter as a mare...

Poseidon pursuing a woman, 480-450BC. Currently in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Manhattan NY...

Could this unidentified "woman" actually be Demeter? 

And in it I pointed that horse is an (animal) calendar marker which links the beginning of the grain harvest (Demeter) season and sailing (Poseidon) season...

It just occurred to me today that doves/pleiades is another (animal) calendar marker that links beginning of the grain harvest (Demeter) season and sailing (Poseidon) season...

That's it. To read more about ancient animal and plant calendar markers, start here…Then check my twitter threads I still didn't convert to blog post...I am way way behind...